Dry Eye Treatment

Sites Vision Clinic can provide the Clarksville and Elkton dry eye treatment you need -- while also helping you prevent dry eye recurrences. Dry eye may sound more like a casual description than a medical condition, but in fact it is a common and very real ocular affliction. Dry eye can produce a variety of irritating symptoms, and it can even lead to significant eye complications if it goes untreated. Fortunately, you don't have to let dry eye threaten either your comfort or your eyesight.

How Your Dry Eyes Can Hurt You

Any individual may develop dry eyes at some point, however briefly, especially if the eyes are exposed to high winds or dust. But a chronic dry eye condition suggests a more subtle underlying medical, lifestyle or environmental cause. For instance:

Working under a ceiling fan may be dehydrating your eyes without your even being aware of it.

Spending too much uninterrupted time in front of a computer screen can reduce your blink rate -- and blinking is the trigger for tear production.

Many medicines and health conditions can have a drying effect on the eyes.

Simple aging is an extremely common cause of reduced tear quantity.

Certain types of contact lenses can make a tendency toward dry eye worse.

Since a normal tear film contains a balance of water, mucous and oils, a blockage in the oil-producing melbomian glands of the eyelid can leave you with inadequate eye protection.

Dry eye symptoms include eye redness, irritation, itching, blurry vision, and the annoying feeling that a foreign body has found its way into the eye. As it that weren't reason enough to see your Elkton or Clarksville optometrist, extended dryness can leave the front surface of the eye vulnerable to infectious agents, grit, pollen and even possible corneal ulceration.

Relieving & Preventing Dry Eye in Clarksville and Elkton

Your friends at Sites Vision Clinic can play an important role in both relieving and preventing dry eye in Clarksville and Elkton. Your eye doctor will study your symptoms, examine the eye for any signs of infection or injury, and ask about your health history and medications. We will also examine your tear film's quantity and composition. Treatments may include different kinds of eye drops, changes in medications or contact lenses, and procedures to open plugged melbomian glands.

Once your Elkton or Clarksville optometrist has gotten your dry eye under control, you'll want to keep it at bay for life. We can suggest various measures for preventing dry eye such as taking more computer breaks, always selecting contacts that retain moisture and not running the ceiling fan.